I was thinking
of doing a post about the bye-election on Thursday which resulted in a shock
slight shiver win for the Liberal Democrats. It was to be titled "The Loss
Of Richmond Hill" with a link to the old folk song about a Lass.
But on
checking it I was reminded of something I ought to have remembered. The
Richmond in question of song is in North Yorkshire up by The Dales and is a
delightful town which at one time had an excellent choice of public houses.
Not the same
at all as the grubby suburb of Richmond in South West London that was a Tory
seat in the House of Commons until the local party either lost its wits or fell
subject to Central Office and put in Zac Goldsmith, scion of one of our
plutocrats. Zac resigned as MP in a fit of pique, perhaps assuming he would win
the bye-election.
Probably,
somewhere in the media are comments about it being a dark reminder of the past.
In 1962 the Liberal no hope man in Orpington, a grubby suburb in South East
London, Eric Lubbock, see Wikipedia, took the seat against the Tory, Peter
Goldman, (cue joke about Gold Standards) who upset voters by taking them for
granted. An austerity budget from Selwyn Lloyd did not help.
In 1963 the
Tory Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan went. In 1964 the Tories went having lost
the election to Harold Wilson's Labour Party. Whatever we may think of him now,
in the early 60's Wilson was regarded by many as a political adventurer and
hard line socialist, rightly or wrongly.
Can and does
history repeat itself?
All I take from Richmond Park is that UK politics can do without Zac Goldsmith.
ReplyDeleteShowing one's age a bit here, laddy. :)
ReplyDeleteWilson was the main reason I stopped voting Labour. When I saw the education and defence cuts he was making I reasoned that he and his gang were trying to create a nation who were too thick to be worth defending. The trouble is, as time has gone on he's proved not to be alone in his ambitions . . .
ReplyDelete